song for the heartsick (better days are near)
by embraidery
Summary: Suzie Boreton, rescued from death at the hands of the Mage's goons by the dirtiest woman she's ever seen in her life, faces a question: would she like to go on a road trip with her savior? No, Suzie thinks, but when she opens her mouth, Yes comes out. And so begins the weirdest road trip ever.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **(title from Battle Scars by Paradise Fears)

Note that this story contains canon-typical violence and life endangerment and a brief scene of sexual harassment.

This picks up immediately after the whole drama with Bart wanting Suzie to smile because Bart didn't kill her, etc, and the first line is verbatim from the show. After that, it's all me! Enjoy!

* * *

"Well, so, do you wanna come with me and be best friends?" the dirt-covered woman asked hopefully, looking down at the grimacing Suzie.

Suzie bit down on her instinctive _no_ and thought about it. She still didn't know what was going on with the man in the white suit. If she stayed, he might send more goons after her. On the other hand, this smudgy woman had just killed several men. She would have no qualms killing Suzie if she refused to join her in her car. Suzie thought about waking up in an empty bed because Bob was still drinking, or waking up next to a comatose Bob who hadn't kissed her in years. She thought about Scott yelling at her. She looked up at the smudgy woman, whose lip was starting to quiver. Despite the obvious answer, Suzie suddenly felt that this woman was the least horrible of all the choices that lay ahead of her.

"Yes," Suzie said. "Yes, I'll come with you." She wondered if this was the first sign of her insanity or if she'd gone insane years ago.

* * *

At first, Suzie's fear had kept her wide-awake and sitting poker straight next to the smudgy woman. But it had been a day full of surprises, and the smudgy woman, Bart, had put the gun down by her feet. Suzie dropped off into a fitful sleep. She woke up a few hours later to the sound of Bart singing along to the Beatles in fits and starts as she remembered the words. Suzie couldn't quite decide to sing along, but she felt like she could put down her guard slightly. She ran one hand through her hair, flattened by her nap against the window.

"You're awake," Bart rasped, looking over at Suzie.

"Yes," Suzie ventured, unsure how to respond. "Where…where are we going?"

"To find Ken! You're sure you don't know him? He's wearing a purple hotel uniform."

"I don't know anyone named Ken. But there's more than one Ken in the world."

"There is?" Bart exclaimed, turning to look at her again. "How do you tell them apart?"

Suzie pinched her inner arm to make sure she was awake. "Well, they all look different. And they have different last names." She had spoken with the sort of tone she would use with a small child, but thought better of it and cleared her throat awkwardly. "Where is Ken?"

"Last names," Bart marveled quietly. She added, "I don't know where Ken is. That's why I'm looking for him."

_Oh right. Just what I need, rambling all over the country with this crazy woman who almost killed me! _Suzie's inner voice shrilled. "Do you think we could…look for Ken in the morning?" Suzie suggested.

"Yeah, okay," Bart said, shrugging. She pulled the car into a hotel parking lot.

After Bart had paid with a massive ball of bills and they'd gotten settled into their one hotel room (something Suzie was nervous about, since Bart could still kill her), Suzie took stock of her situation. She was alone with a killer. She had her phone and purse, but no phone charger. She didn't have her cane. She only had one outfit, and it was covered in dirt. She couldn't control very much about this situation, but she could wash her clothes, so she'd start there while she tried to work out a plan.

She watched Bart flick through channels on the television. Her instinct would be to ask if Bart minded if Suzie monopolized the bathroom for a while, but on second thoughts, Suzie didn't owe Bart anything. She took slow steps towards the bathroom, careful of her bad leg.

"Look! The people in the TV are making food!" Bart said, pointing. She grinned at Suzie. "I haven't had food since yesterday."

Suzie had thought her maternal instinct was long gone, but it reared its head deep down in her chest. "You should eat." Come to think of it, she hadn't eaten in a while either. She pulled out her wallet. $22 in small bills. Maybe Bart would foot the bill. "Do you feel like eating?"

"Yes," Bart decided. "I like Chinese food."

"Chinese food is good," Suzie said, and they went out to the parking lot together.

* * *

Dinner was odd. While Suzie hadn't eaten at a proper restaurant in years, she'd never seen anyone with table manners as bad as Bart's. Within five minutes Bart was covered in sweet and sour sauce. Still, Suzie supposed this was better than nothing.

"Pass the rice?" Bart asked, breaking the silence. Suzie handed her the bowl and watched as Bart scooped a portion of rice onto her plate with her hand.

"What will you do if you don't find Ken?"

Bart shrugged, not looking up from her chicken. "I'll find him. The universe will help me."

"What?"

"The universe does stuff for me," Bart rasped. She picked up a chopstick and stabbed it into her arm. Suzie flinched, but when she opened her eyes again, Bart's arm was unharmed and she was back to shoveling rice into her mouth. Suzie rubbed her eyes and looked again. It wasn't the strangest thing she'd witnessed in the past day or so, but…

"Did you just stab your arm?"

"Yeah." Bart shrugged again. "'s always been like that. 'Cept after I met Dirk Gently." She looked up at Suzie, who noticed that Bart's eyes were suddenly filled with terror. "I met Dirk Gently and then I got hurt!"

"What happened?"

"This nasty lady stabbed me!" Bart gripped the edge of the table with both hands. "I thought I was s'posed to kill Dirk Gently, 'cause I'd heard his name in my dream, but I tried to kill him and the lady stabbed my leg and there was blood everywhere!"

Suzie couldn't process all of that at once. She shook her head. "And before that you didn't get hurt. Ever."

"Nope."

"Why did you think you were supposed to kill this guy?"

"'s what I do. I kill people." Bart picked up another piece of chicken and spoke through a hearty bite. "I feel like I'm s'posed to kill people, and I do, and it's right."

"Who is Dirk Gently?"

Bart frowned. "He's like me. I don't know why I would have killed him. Maybe the universe meant something else…" She took a long drink of soda and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"He also kills people?"

"I don't know." Bart shrugged. "I don't want to talk about him."

"Right." Suzie lapsed into silence as she finished her dish. None of this made any sense. At least Bart didn't seem like she wanted to kill Suzie anymore.

* * *

Suzie locked herself into the bathroom after dinner. She wrapped herself in a towel and began scrubbing her clothes in the bathtub. Her bad leg ached in the cold from the tiles, but it only took five minutes to clean her clothes and hang them up to dry. She wasn't sure she wanted to leave the bathroom in only a towel, but it wasn't as though there was anything interesting to do in there. She knotted the towel more securely and stepped out into the room.

Bart was curled up on one of the beds watching some movie Suzie didn't recognize. She looked up when Suzie came into the room. "Are the people stuck in the box?"

"No. They're…" Suzie wasn't sure how to explain television. "Someone recorded them with a video camera. And turned that recording into a movie." Suzie looked Bart over. "When was the last time you cleaned your hair?"

Bart cocked her head and considered that. "When I stayed in the hotel with Ken. Before he went missing. Few weeks maybe."

Suzie discovered that she was only surprised it hadn't been longer, judging by the state of Bart's mass of hair. "You should clean it."

"Okay. Can I drink the stuff in the bottle here or is it all gross?"

Suzie frowned. "Shampoo? No…you can't drink shampoo. Have you drunk it before?"

"I tried it in the hotel with Ken. It had food on the bottle." Bart shrugged. She disappeared into the bathroom. Suzie heard the water turn on, then Bart making little noises like an animal faced with something it didn't quite like. A few minutes later Bart re-emerged dressed in the same dirty clothes she had been wearing before. She was almost unrecognizable without the dirt on her face. Her hair was still matted, though.

"Why not clean your clothes?" Suzie suggested.

"How?"

"I can do them for you," Suzie said, surprising even herself. "But next time we should stop by a Laundromat."

"What's a Laundromat?"

"It's got lots of washers and dryers for your clothes." Suzie took in Bart's neutral look. Bart reached for the hem of her shirt. "Wait, don't—"

It was too late. Bart had already stripped off her clothes and handed them to Suzie. She reflexively held the clothes up in front of her eyes to avoid looking at Bart, though she regretted it instantly. The clothes smelled like old blood. Suzie stepped to the right and walked around where she thought Bart was until she got to the bathroom. She held the clothes under the tap in the tub and turned on the water. Suzie's throat tightened as she watched the dirty water swirl down the drain. It ran brown and red for a long time.

When she'd washed out Bart's clothes, Suzie got the idea to use the hairdryer provided by the hotel to speed up the drying process. "Here's your towel," Suzie said, tossing it out the bathroom door. "Would you come in here and help me dry the clothes?"

"Okay," came Bart's croaky voice, and her head appeared around the door frame. "What do I do?"

"Hold the clothes, please."

Bart obediently held the clothes up as Suzie ran the hair dryer over them. The drying clothes smelled like clean(ish) cotton, which reminded her of hanging her laundry out on the clothesline with her mom when she was a kid. Kids at school bullied her for the way her line-dried clothes looked. She started taking her clothes to the laundromat as soon as she started making babysitting money.

When they were dry, both women got dressed and sat on the beds. Suzie pulled in a long, even breath and looked at Bart across the space between their beds. She was sitting quietly, arms around her knees, watching an ad about a kitchen multitool. With her hair wet and scraggly around her neck and her chin on her knees, she looked vulnerable and childlike. Suzie realized that she had no idea how old Bart was or how much she'd been through, and here they were, sharing a hotel room. Suzie, former prom queen, and Bart, current murderer. Suzie looked down at her phone. She had about twenty percent battery left. Was it worth it to buy a new charger? Was she going to keep traveling with Bart? She shook her head, turned her phone off, and buried it at the bottom of her purse. She'd think about it in the morning.

"Can you turn the light off?" Suzie asked Bart, getting in her bed and pulling the covers up around her neck.

"Okay," Bart said. She got off the bed, flicked off the light switch, got back in bed. "'Night, Suzie."

"Goodnight, Bart."


	2. Chapter 2

Suzie woke up to a fire crackling on the floor of the hotel room and Bart piling wooden furniture in front of the full-length mirror. Suzie shrieked and tried to get out of bed, but something prevented her. She looked down to see that thick ropes criss-crossed her torso and limbs. She screamed and started throwing her weight against the ropes, but Bart came towards her, brandishing a gun in one hand.

"It'll be better if you don't struggle," she cackled. She pointed her gun at the ceiling and fired-

-just as Suzie fell out of her bed with a thump, snapping her out of her dream. She'd landed on her bad leg, which sent a shock of pain through her body. She hadn't yet blinked away her disorientation before Bart leaned over the edge of her own bed.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Suzie instinctively held both hands out in front of her. "Get away from me, you bitch!" She couldn't believe she'd let her guard down after only one day with this murderer, this-

"Sorry," Bart said, shrugging. "I just heard a thump, tha's all. 'Night." Bart disappeared under her blanket.

Suzie looked down at herself. Her sheets were wrapped around her torso and legs. It reminded her of the way the ladies at parenting classes taught her to swaddle Scott when he was first born. She looked up at the hotel room, which wasn't on fire, though it did smell like other guests' smoke. There was no pyre in progress under the mirror. Suzie sat where she was braced against the side of the bed for a moment, separating her dream from reality. Bart's skin had been smeared with dirt in the dream, and her clothes had been unwashed.

"Oh," Suzie whispered to herself. She struggled with herself for a moment before whispering, half-hoping she wouldn't be heard, "Sorry." She heard the noise of a body shifting under the other covers.

"Tha's okay," Bart murmured.

Suzie hauled herself back into bed and lay staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours.

* * *

Suzie woke up before Bart did. She watched Bart sleep for a moment, looking peaceful, hands under her cheek. Suzie thought about her dream as she showered. It was already fading, washing out of her brain as yesterday's sweat washed off her body. Suzie scrubbed her arms and thought about the only act of violence she'd actually seen Bart commit. It was almost as faded to her as her dream was, like an old photo left out in the sun. It had been vivid at the time, of course, even if she had been too scared to notice all the details. Now the memory was fuzzy. She just remembered Bart's bright smile as Suzie agreed to go with her.

Suzie got out of the shower, toweled off, got dressed. She went down to get breakfast alone. She was lost in thought as she waited for her crappy hotel waffle to cook and didn't notice the man behind her trying to get her attention.

"Suzie!" His hand on her arm cut through the fog in her head more than his voice did. She turned to look at him. He was an old high school classmate, she knew that much, though she couldn't place the name to the face. He'd been the sort of nerd to get shoved into lockers back then, not the sort of guy a future prom queen would notice. He'd gotten attractive: he was wearing a sharp suit and his hair was expensively cut and washed.

"Suzie, is that you?" he asked, cutting her off as she opened her mouth to speak. "I thought it was. How have you been? You look _great_."

Suzie frowned slightly at the emphasis he put on that last word. "Yes, it's me," she said. She felt as though she was coming up from the bottom of a very deep pool. "How have you _been_?" She dialled up her toothiest smile.

"Oh, you know, not much to speak about," he said, shifting his hand to her back and steering her to the nearest table. "Graduated from UCLA, got into computer engineering. Just paid off my new Mercedes. But we're here to talk about you!"

Suzie looked down at herself. In her opinion, everything about her life had gone down the toilet since high school and especially since the accident. Probably he was caught up in the triumph of overcoming his high school reputation, the triumph of becoming as cool as she used to be. She crossed one arm across her torso in the guise of holding onto her purse, hoping to protect her chest from his hungry eyes.

"Yes, it's very nice to see you," she lied, voice pitching higher as she crossed her arms more closely over her torso. Her skin crawled under his touch, even though there was fabric between her and his hand. "No, I haven't been up to much-"

The next thing she knew, his hand slid down to her ass and a shot rang out. There was screaming, and Bart pulling her along, and the whooping shriek of a fire alarm, but Suzie registered very little of it. She sat, shell-shocked, in Bart's front seat, as Bart peeled out of the parking lot. All she could sense was his too-strong cologne, blood, gunpowder, burning waffles.

* * *

Suzie felt as though she had woken up from a deep sleep, but she couldn't remember being asleep or dreaming. It was quiet in Bart's car, peacefully so, which jarred painfully against Suzie's memories.

"You-he-why-you-what-what?"

Bart looked over at Suzie. Suzie would have sworn six ways to Sunday that she was wrong, of course, but it seemed as though Bart's eyes were soft and sympathetic. "He was a bad man. He was gonna hurt you."

Normally Suzie would have said that it was no worse than she'd experienced throughout her life, especially high school, but she still felt like she'd been knocked off balance. She looked around her, then down at herself. She touched a constellation of dried blood on her forearm, sprinkling little red flakes down on her lap.

"Police?" Suzie asked, her throat still tight. Her words came back to her in a rush. "How could you do that? You killed someone in _public_! Police are gonna come after us! I can never go home! And you think _killing someone _is the right punishment for _groping someone's ass_?"

Bart shrugged, not meeting Suzie's eyes.

"This isn't a big deal to you, huh? Blowing someone's brains out is just another Tuesday afternoon? This is who I've chosen to travel with! Are you gonna kill me too?" Suzie burst out in big, racking sobs. Bart flicked impassive glances at her from the driver's seat.

"Nah."

"Nah...you're not going to...kill me?" Suzie's sob came out as a hiccup. She was thrown back to the first time they'd met, kneeling in the dirt, looking up at this murderer-savior.

"I told you, I get a feeling about who I'm s'posed to kill. And you're nice to me."

"I am?"

"You're helping me look for Ken. You told me not to drink the shampoo. You cleaned my clothes."

"Oh." Suzie occupied herself with wiping tears from her cheeks and dabbing her eyes with kleenex from her purse. Music warbled out of the radio while she thought. Eventually, she said, "How are we going to look for Ken?"

Bart sighed a gusty sigh. "Dunno. I think I'll just know, y'know?"

"No, I don't," Suzie said, and with sheer force of will replaced what she was going to say with, "Can you tell me?"

"Things in my life don't just _happen_. I was s'posed to kill Dirk Gently, or I thought so, I dunno. I thought I found him, but it wasn't Dirk Gently, it was Ken. When the universe tells me summ'in, sometimes I can't tell what it says. _Usually_ it means I gotta kill someone. But that time I was s'posed to meet Ken. I'll find him. I'll feel it."

"Why did the universe want you to meet Ken?"

Bart shrugged. The two women lapsed into silence.

* * *

They stopped for lunch not too long after. Bart had selected an old-fashioned diner. Suzie stopped to look at the jukebox by the door. Even if she had wanted to play a song, she wouldn't have been able to tell which buttons to press. Countless fingers had worn them down so that they looked like bowls: nearly new around the edges, dipping down in the center. They took a seat and ordered cheeseburgers. Suzie had to wave one hand in front of her nose to ward away the nauseating combination of greasy fried food and pungent cleaning supplies. She took a deep breath and pulled out her phone for the first time since she left home.

There were missed calls from Bob and from her work. Suzie listened to the ones from her work first. They announced the death of the quarry manager and stated that the office would be closed for a week. The next message said that the police were looking into the incident and that it would be prudent for Suzie to stay in town, though she wasn't necessarily a suspect. Suzie's finger hovered over the key to hit to listen to Bob's messages. Eventually she turned her phone off without listening to them and shoved it in her pocket. The two women ate quietly together, the silence only interrupted by Bart's noisy milkshake slurping..

"So, tell me about yourself," Suzie said. She realized belatedly that Bart wouldn't have a normal answer to any of those questions. She assumed that Bart didn't have a job or hobbies.

Bart shrugged and looked up from her milkshake. "Not much to say."

"Right." Suzie tapped her fingers on the tabletop. "Well, I live-lived-in Bergsberg with my husband, my son, and my husband's dog. I worked at a quarry."

"What's a quarry?"

"Where they mine stone."

"Oh."

"Listen, do you wanna do something fun?" Suzie pasted on a smile.

"Like what?"

Suzie looked around the diner for ideas. There was a photo of a bowling team on one wall; smiling people in purple uniforms held their bowling balls in front of them. "Have you ever been bowling?"


	3. Chapter 3

It turned out that there was a shortage of bowling alleys in rural Montana. Luckily they found one about fifty miles away. At noon on a weekday, most of the other people there were retirees. A bored employee took their money and told them about the specials on pizza and soda combos.

"What size shoes?" asked another employee, this one a teenager so young Suzie wondered if they were legal to work.

"Seven," Suzie said. They both looked expectantly at Bart, who shrugged.

"Does it say on the bottom of the shoe?" Suzie asked.

Bart propped her left foot on her right knee and checked the bottom of the shoe. The sole was taped together with duct tape, covering any sign of the size.

"Inside?" Suzie suggested, but the sign wasn't there either. "Let's compare feet." They sat down to hold their feet together and decided that they were about the same size.

"Another pair of sevens," Suzie said, feeling a little frazzled. The bowling alley was a lot harder on the eyes and ears than she remembered from taking Scott to the one near Bergsberg. This one had squiggles painted on the walls that glowed under black light and matching carpet. The whole thing made her feel like it was midnight rather than noon.

Suzie and Bart sat down together to tie their shoes. They each grabbed a ball and made their way to their lane.

"So you hold the ball like-" Suzie began, but Bart had already begun running at the bowling pins. She ran all the way down the lane and began bashing the pins with the ball, still held in her hand. Suzie couldn't even muster the energy to be surprised at this point. "Bart!" she called as softly as possible. "Bart, that's not how you're supposed to do it."

Bart looked up from her work, only one pin left standing. "How am I s'posed to do it?"

"Come over here." Suzie stood up and waited until Bart came back to the top of the lane. "You throw the ball." She demonstrated bringing her arm back and swinging it forward. "You try."

"Like this?" Bart threw the ball with far too much force, arcing through the air and bouncing off the ceiling to land on the lane with a heavy _thunk. _It meandered down the lane, eventually rolling into the gutter.

"More like this." Suzie waited until the pins were reset. "You're rolling it, not throwing it." She demonstrated the swing of her arm a few times before letting the ball go. She was pleasantly surprised to see the ball knock down seven pins.

Bart immediately rolled the ball down the lane. This time she didn't put enough force into it, and the ball nearly came to a stop before knocking down two pins.

"Well, that was my turn, but yes! You're getting it!" Suzie smiled at Bart. "We each get two turns, okay? And then the other person goes. So now you have two turns, and then I'll have two turns."

"Okay." Bart nodded in fierce concentration and faced the pins once again. This time the ball went hurtling towards the pins at just the right speed and knocked down four on the right side. "Is that good?!"

"Yeah!" Suzie offered Bart a high-five, who returned it. Bart had such a wide grin on her face. It reminded Suzie of when she wanted to be a teacher and helped younger kids write their essays over lunch. "Now you have to knock over the other six pins. So aim for the left side…"

They turned out to be almost perfectly matched. Suzie had been decent-to-good when she was still in school, though she hadn't played in years. Bart had never played before, but she had a good eye and a better aim. They ended up tied after Bart got a strike in the last frame, giving her another turn, and Suzie fumbled the ball, missing the pins entirely. They got sodas to celebrate and took a break at one of the formica tables, watching a league of retirees get strike after strike.

Bart's attention was drawn to the arcade on the other side of the room, and more specifically, the shooting games. "Can we play those?"

Suzie followed her gaze. "Okay." She found herself giggling as she stood up. "You're on."

Bart selected a game that involved shooting deer. She picked up the plastic gun, brought it to her shoulder, and began picking off the virtual deer with startling speed and accuracy.

"You're really good!" Suzie said.

Bart lowered the gun and grinned. "'S what I do. Your turn!"

Suzie had bowled quite a bit in her youth, but she'd only played a shooting game once or twice. She picked up the gun and tracked it across the screen, following one of the deer. She missed by a fair margin.

"Wait." Bart paused until Suzie looked at her. "Do you know which eye is your good eye?"

"No." Suzie had never heard of this before. She put down the gun and watched a deer on the screen meander away, unharmed.

"Point at the clock," Bart said, demonstrating. "Close one eye. Did your finger move?"

"What?" said Suzie, who had seen two of her own finger pointing at the clock, and then only one finger when she closed her eye.

"Okay, point at my face," said Bart, backing away. "Close your eye."

"Oh, my finger moved!" Suzie exclaimed, left eye closed.

"So your good eye is your right eye. Look through that eye when you shoot stuff!"

"Like this?" Suzie held the gun up again and closed her left eye. This time the virtual bullet actually hit the deer. They high-fived. By the end, Suzie had gotten better, and they decided to go for another round. While Suzie's score couldn't compete with that of an assassin-she was going to say _professional _or _trained _assassin, but neither one was exactly true-she was pretty proud of herself.

There were still hours to go before they could rest for the night. Suzie remembered times when she was younger when even half an hour was too long and she'd complain to her parents, but she found that she enjoyed it now. It was relaxing watching the world go by, no obligations or duties or chores nagging at the back of her mind. She soaked up the comfortable silence in the car.

"What's it like having a husband?" Bart asked.

Suzie startled out of her daydream about riding an antelope over the Montana plains and hit her head on the window. "What?" She rubbed her head with one hand.

"What's it like having a husband?"

Suzie shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Well, I...I don't know. I've been married half my life. I don't really remember what it was like before."

"Do you kiss?"

Suzie was a bit taken aback. "I don't think that that's your business!" But before Bart could react, she admitted, "No, not in a long time."

"Do you love him?" Bart asked, looking over from the wheel, eyebrows creased.

Suzie looked down at her lap, where her hands were resting, and twisted her wedding ring around her finger. "I-don't know." She wanted to resist her impulse to keep talking, but there was something she trusted about Bart, and the words came tumbling out of her. "Maybe not. Not in a while," she whispered, and tears began to leak out of the corners of her eyes. Suzie covered her eyes with both hands, sniffling.

Bart pulled the car over. She pulled the parking brake back with a jerk. There was a long pause, then she patted Suzie's shoulder. "Hey, it's okay." Bart had clearly attempted to whisper, but her growly voice made it difficult to say anything softly.

"Is it?" Suzie asked, taking her hands away from her face and looking at Bart. "I don't love my husband, he doesn't love me, my son hates me, I have nothing! No one!" Her voice slid higher and higher until she squeaked on the last word. She buried her face in her hands again.

"You don't have friends?" Bart asked.

"No. They all stopped talking to me after the accident." Suzie wiped her eyes, desperate to stop crying and making a mess. "It's okay. It's fine! I'm fine, I don't need friends anyway."

"I can be your friend," Bart said, reaching out again to touch her shoulder.

"Great, my only friend in the world is an _assassin_." Suzie's smile was sharp. "I'm doing _great_."

"You don't have to be friends with me if you don't want to." Bart turned to face forward and gripped the steering wheel with both hands.

Her tone shocked Suzie out of her crying jag. "I didn't mean it like that." She hesitantly reached out and touched Bart's shoulder.

"No, 's fine! If you don't want to be my friend you can just leave!" Bart jabbed one finger out at the scenery.

"What? Bart, I-"

"Leave!" Bart turned her tear-streaked face towards Suzie and bared her teeth.

"But I don't-"

Bart got her gun out and pointed it at Suzie.

"What are you doing, Bart?"

Another tear slipped down Bart's face. "I don't need anyone or anything! Get out!"

Suzie disbelievingly scrambled out of the car with her purse and cane. Bart leaned over to shut the door behind her and drove off, tires squealing.

Suzie stood there watching Bart's car until it was out of sight. She only saved herself from crumpling to the ground by leaning heavily on her cane. The situation didn't look good. She was on a small two-lane highway that Bart had said "felt right," and they hadn't seen any other cars pass for about half an hour. There had been no bus stops, no phone booths, or anything else that Suzie could use to get home. She didn't have money, anyway, and her phone was dead.

"Fuck!" Suzie shouted to the sky. "FUCK!" She began to cry again.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: this chapter contains a creepy man and brief mentions of pedophilia and sexual harassment.

* * *

Time passed slowly when you were sitting on the side of the road with nothing to do, Suzie discovered. She found a tree to sit under for shade and sat with her legs stretched out in front of her, watching butterflies float by. If no cars passed by in the next hour, she thought to herself, she'd start walking back the way they came. But the longer she sat there, leaning against the tree, the less she wanted to start walking. The warm, stifling air made her sleepier and sleepier until she began to doze off.

It was then that Suzie heard the distant sound of a car engine. She jumped to her feet and made her way to the edge of the highway. The car was still a fair distance away, but she began waving her arms anyway. She had her cane clutched in one hand, so she waved that, too. Eventually the sleek black car pulled over to her side of the road and the window rolled down.

The man inside had a sharp suit sandy blond hair. He greeted her in a drawling Southern accent.

"Well, you're all alone on a fine afternoon, aren't you, young lady?" He raised his eyebrows at her.

Suzie wasn't sure how to summarize the situation. She settled for, "Can you give me a ride?"

"_Cer_tainly. Where are you headed?" The man pressed a button inside the car and Suzie heard the lock click. She scrambled over to the car and fumbled with the door handle until she was settled inside. She smoothed her hands over her hair and put her purse in her lap.

"Anywhere," Suzie said. "I...was traveling with someone and we had a fight. She left me here. I want to get somewhere where I can get a bus home."

"That's a shame," the man said, starting the car and pulling back onto the highway. "Was this woman a friend of yours?"

Suzie stared out the window and thought about the adventures of the past few days: washing Bart's dirty clothes, the dream that Bart had tied her up, Bart rescuing her from the creep, going bowling and to the arcade. Their fight. "Not really," she said slowly. "Just someone I met. She's kind of weird, you know?" In her anger, her voice gained strength and speed. "She tried to drink shampoo and her hair is always so messy!"

The man glanced over at her, raising his eyebrows again. "That does sound very odd. I bet she talks strangely as well."

"Yes...sometimes," Suzie said slowly. Her stomach suddenly felt knotted. "But she was kind to me, too. Sorry, who are _you_? Where are you going?"

"My name's Priest. I'm going wherever the universe wants me to go." One corner of the man's mouth twitched like he'd referenced some private joke. "And what is your name?"

Suzie couldn't think of a fake first name, but she did think to use her maiden name. "Suzanne Brown."

"It sure is nice to meet you, Ms. Brown." Suzie had to fight not to be swept away by his maple syrup voice. "I'm sorry to hear about your friend. She doesn't sound like a very good one. Did she ever _frighten_ you? Make you think she was..._dangerous_?"

Suzie had spent her whole life learning how to ignore her gut instinct about men. From her friends being jealous of Suzie because the young gym teacher clearly stared at her butt to her mom telling her she shouldn't wear such short skirts if she didn't want to attract attention, it was clear no one cared when men were creeps to her. But her internal alarm bells were beginning to ring, and this time it was different. Something about his tone made her think maybe he knew Bart and he wasn't going to let Suzie out of the car until he had the information he wanted.

"No," Suzie lied staunchly. "She wouldn't hurt a fly." She gripped the top of her purse with both hands.

Priest put on his indicator and pulled into a gas station. "I'd be careful, Ms. Brown. Sometimes it's the people you least expect who hurt you the most." He glanced at her before turning the car off and getting out. Suzie grabbed the door handle before he could lock the car.

When he turned to look at her, Suzie squeaked, "Just have to use the bathroom." She made sure to lean heavily on her cane as she made her way to the gas station. When she got inside, she said to the cashier, "Would you tell me when the man in the suit is looking away from us?"

The cashier glanced out of the window and nodded. "I can do that. He's looking at us right now, hun, and he looks awful intense."

Suzie brought a phone charger and some snacks to the counter and got out her wallet.

"Oh hun, these will be on me. He looks like a nasty nasty man."

"He is!" Suzie replied, keeping her eyes on the candy bars under the counter.

"Do you want me to call the cops?"

"I don't think so," Suzie said. "I just want to get out of here. Is there a back door?"

"You can use the employee exit. Okay, he's busy with the gas pump, go, go, go!" the cashier said.

Suzie walked towards the employee exit, trying to look as nonchalant as possible. Once she made it through the door into the back room, she had to navigate a maze of cardboard boxes through to the actual exit. She pushed through the exit and found herself in the back of the parking lot. There was a small cluster of buildings, including a few houses. Suzie chose a house with a soccer mom van parked in front and a pair of tricycles on the porch. Suzie knocked on the door and waited, flicking her eyes between the gas station and the door.

"Hello?" A youngish woman wearing an apron answered the door. She was covered in flour and looked frazzled.

"Hi! I'm trying to get away from this creep!" Suzie said. "Can I-"

"Oh gosh yes, you can come in!" The woman ushered Suzie in and shut the door, sliding the deadbolt across. "Do you need anything?"

"Can I charge my phone?"

"Of course! Come in, have some cookies, I'm baking them for the bake sale but they won't miss one or two." The house was cozy but messy. A child, probably around five or so, brandished a rolling pin, while another around the same age was drawing pictures in the flour spilled on the floor. "There's an outlet over there. Let's sweep up that flour, Hayden!" she said to the child, crouching down.

Suzie plugged in her phone and did her best to stand so that she couldn't be seen from the window. She couldn't help peeking out to see if she could see Mr. Priest's car leaving the gas station. As soon as the black car pulled out from the lot, she ducked behind the cupboards again.

"Are you going to be okay?" the woman asked, dumping a handful of rescued flour into the trash.

Suzie peeked out the window again. The black car was moving slowly down the road that led to the houses, including the one Suzie was in. "I don't know," she told the woman, gripping her phone. "I'm far from home and I want to get away from that man but I don't know if I want to go home." She finally gave into her tears and cried for the third time that day. It had been a whirlwind two days.

The other woman gently rubbed Suzie's back with one hand while holding one of the children away from the bowl of cookie dough with the other. "Oh dear. Well, I'm sure you could stay here for a few days if you wanted to. I'll have to ask my wife, but I think it would be okay! Anything to help a fellow woman, right?"

"Thank you," Suzie sobbed, wrapping her arms around the other woman. She was kind of horrified at her own behavior, but at this point she didn't have the strength to pull herself together. The other woman gently pulled away, though she left Suzie's arms on her shoulders.

"Hayden, Kaylee, would you two go upstairs for a little while?" She waited until her children had left the room. "I'm Megan. What's your name?"

"Suzie."

"You're safe now, Suzie," Megan said, leaning forward and looking into Suzie's eyes as she rubbed Suzie's back. "Is he your husband? Ex?"

"I don't know him. He was just gonna give me a lift." Suzie wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

"I'll get you a kleenex," Megan said, picking up a box of tissues and passing it to Suzie, who immediately pulled several tissues from the box. "They always say hitchhiking is pretty safe out here in the country, but I think it might be worse than other places, especially with all these gun owners! I'm so sorry that that happened to you."

Suzie sighed and put her face in her hands. "I was traveling with this woman, Bart, and I thought I wouldn't need my phone, and it went dead...otherwise I could have just called a taxi."

Megan frowned. "What happened to Bart?"

"We got in a fight and she made me get out." Suzie started crying again.

"Sounds like you've had a wild day. You can go take a nap if you like." Megan went and got two glasses out of a cupboard. "Soda? Juice? Water?" She turned to look at Suzie and winked. "Or, since the kids are out of the way, we could have an adult beverage."

Suzie shook her head. "Thanks, but I think I'll just take that nap." She pushed up off her chair and went to glance out the window. The black car seemed to have circled around and was driving slowly back to the highway. Suzie watched it go, clutching her phone. She checked her phone once the car was out of sight. There were a handful of messages from Bob (mostly angry) and messages from her work (a combination of concerned and angry). She set her phone face down on the counter and ran her hands through her hair before turning to look at Megan.

"Maybe I will take a gin and tonic."


	5. Chapter 5

Suzie spilled her whole story, minus the murder and magic, over drinks.

"So it sounds like you don't know what you want, but you know what you _don't_ want," Megan said, hands wrapped around her own glass. She popped her maraschino into her mouth and spoke around it. "You just don't wanna admit it."

Suzie sighed and took another gulp of her drink. "You're right." She traced her finger around the edge of her glass. "So what do I do when I don't know what I want?"

Megan shrugged.

"That's a lie," Suzie said, before Megan could open her mouth. "I do know what I want, and it's _everything_, but I can't get _anything_."

"I'm glad you're settin' realistic goals for yourself," Megan said dryly. She dropped the stem of her cherry into her glass. "One step at a time, hun! Right now all you need to do is find a roof to put over your head and some food to put in your mouth."

"Why does that feel like the hardest thing?" Suzie sighed, shaking her head.

"I've already offered our spare room." Megan reached out and put her hand over Suzie's. "We'll feed you for a couple weeks, anyway, and I'm sure you could find a job somewhere around here."

Suzie looked down at their hands. She itched to take hers away, but she couldn't be rude, not when Megan was offering her so much. "This is too much. I—"

"Can't? Come on, we both know that whole song and dance ends in takin' the thing that's bein' offered!" Megan squeezed Suzie's hand. "Just tonight. See how it goes. The kids are spendin' the night with friends, so it'll be quiet."

Suzie sighed. "Thank you. I… thank you."

Megan slapped her thighs with both hands. "Alright. I'm gonna finish makin' these cookies, but you do you, okay?"

"Okay." Suzie threw back the last of her drink like a shot. "I'm just gonna go get something from the gas station."

"I'll be here," Megan said, smiling over her shoulder at Suzie.

Suzie checked out the window to make sure Priest was gone, then again when she left the house, then again when she made it to the gas station. He was gone. Good, she thought, and went into the gas station to buy a bottle of vodka and a candy bar. She'd bought snacks before when trying to get away from him, but for the life of her she couldn't remember what they were. She was pretty sure none of them had been chocolate.

"You're safe!" the cashier said, smiling at her.

"I am." Suzie pondered that statement as she handed the cashier most of the $22 that was all the money she had in the world. It wasn't exactly true, she thought, but at least Priest was gone. "Thank you. For before."

"Anytime."

The bell on the door tinkled as Suzie left. She tucked the bottle of vodka under one arm while she tried to rip open the candy bar. Her fingers wouldn't cooperate, so she brought the chocolate to her mouth to rip the plastic with her teeth. She felt like a wolf just gulping the chocolate down and forced herself to eat the second half more slowly.

Suzie helped Megan and her wife, Georgie, make dinner. They had chicken and rice, nothing fancy.

Megan leaned back in her chair after dinner, groaning and patting her stomach. "Okay. I guess I'll go put the sheets on."

"Let me help," said Suzie, who hated putting sheets on, but felt like she had to make an effort to be grateful for the offer of a bed.

The sheets were exceedingly soft. Suzie never wanted to leave the bed. She stripped off her shirt and pants, leaving them on the floor, before climbing back onto the bed. She lay back and moved her arms and legs as if making a snow angel.

"Do you want some pajamas?" Megan called from the hallway.

"Yes please!" Suzie called back.

Once Suzie was settled in bed and Megan had said goodnight, Suzie pulled out her bottle of vodka and had a few pulls from it. _Just to help me sleep_, she thought, shoving her other thoughts as far away from her as she could.

Suzie woke in the morning after a dreamless sleep. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what had happened with Bart. It left her with a knot in her stomach that she really didn't want to think about. She just went down for breakfast. Megan came in with the kids and they all sat down for waffles generously covered in sprinkles and whipped cream, which made Suzie smile.

She spent the day reading, pulling novels from Megan and Georgie's little library, reading the first ten pages until she found a novel she could spend all day reading. She couldn't remember the last time she'd read something for fun. She read whatever books the book club assigned, but that was more about keeping up appearances. She hadn't been allowed in the book club for ages, anyway.

So she devoured a romance novel, then another, then another. She'd forgotten how much she loved reading. Eventually she'd like to get back to "more sophisticated reading," but for now, in a loveless marriage, all she wanted to do was read _romance_.

Eventually she went out to the gas station again to get more chocolate, using up all the rest of her money on it. She leaned against the gas station wall to open the package.

Just as she looked up, a familiar car drifted by on the highway, going slow. Bart's car. Suzie's heart thudded painfully in her chest.

The car pulled into the gas station parking lot and came to a clumsy, jerking stop. The door flew open and Bart leapt out at Suzie. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her face was streaked with tears as she embraced Suzie. Bart felt as tiny and bony as a bird, like she would snap in half if Suzie squeezed too hard.

"Suzie!" she cried. "I'm so sorry I made you leave! You don't hate me, do you?"

"No, I don't hate you." Suzie rubbed Bart's back. "I'm glad you're here!"

"I didn't know if I could find you again!" Bart began to cry again, tears running freely into the shoulder of Suzie's shirt. She hiccuped wetly.

Suzie gently pushed Bart to arms' length and rubbed her upper arms. "I'm here, I'm here. Come with me, okay? Let's get you some water." She released Bart and remembered the vodka hidden in her room. "Or some booze."

They walked back to Megan's house together. Megan opened the door for them and welcomed them in.

"This must be Bart!" she said, hands on hips. "I'm glad you're here." She exchanged a glance with Suzie, who managed a small smile. "Come in and have some cookies!"

Suzie taught Bart how to do shots. She wasn't very good at first, sputtering and sending most of the shot flying across the counter, but after four or so Bart had gotten the hang of it. Suzie and Bart had made it through half the bottle when Megan came over and confiscated the rest of it.

"I think you've had enough," she said softly, looking at Bart, who had collapsed onto the table top. Little whistling snores came out from under the puddle of her hair.

"You're prob'ly right," Suzie said, trying her hardest not to slur the words. She pushed her hair out of her face. "Wh't time is it?"

Megan checked her watch. "Five o'clock. Let's get some dinner started, hey?"

She and Suzie picked Bart up and took her into the living room, where they set her down on the couch and covered her in a blanket.

"She seems...different," Megan said, carefully, as she pulled vegetables from the fridge to start a salad.

Suzie looked across the room at Bart. Only her tangle of hair was visible under the blanket. "She is." Suzie rubbed the tips of her fingers together, deciding how much she should trust Megan when it came to Bart's illegal activities. "Dunno how she grew up, but she doesn' know about bowling or shampoo...but she does know how to drive…"

Megan watched the slow rise and fall of Bart's breath as she diced tomatoes. "Poor thing."

Suzie went over to the chopping board, picking up a head of lettuce and shredding it into the salad bowl. "I dunno, she's...she can take care of herself, dunno how…and she took care of me, with that creepy dude." She vaguely remembered telling Megan about the event, though she didn't remember exactly what she said Bart had done to the dude instead of shooting him.

Megan smiled and popped a cube of tomato into her mouth. "Maybe you two make a good team." She went to the sink and filled up a glass for Suzie. "Here, have this. We don't want you to wake up with a terrible hangover!"

Suzie accepted the glass and drained it in one go. "Maybe we do make a good team." She looked over at Bart's couch once again.

Megan's kids came clattering down the staircase then. Suzie took over making the salad (though she avoided the knife, drunk as she was) as Megan busied herself with the kids. Soon after they had a simple dinner of garlic bread, salad, and leftover chicken. Georgie came in halfway through and hugged everyone. Suzie didn't know Megan and Georgie very well, but it was nice to sit down and have a dinner where everyone actually talked to each other and no one raised their voice.

After dinner, when Megan, Georgie, and Suzie sat around the table having after-dinner drinks, Bart woke up. She wandered into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes.

"Hello, sleepyhead," Megan said, smiling at Bart. "Here, have some water, okay?"

Bart accepted the glass with both hands and chugged it down.

"Let's get you settled for the night, Bart. Suzie's in the guest room, with the double bed, and there's the couch."

Suzie looked at Bart, who shrugged.

"I can take the couch," Bart said, voice still especially growly from sleep.

"We can share the bed," Suzie suggested.

Bart looked appraisingly at Suzie. "Okay."

They went upstairs together. Suzie curled into a ball on the bed while Bart went into the bathroom.

Bart came into the room from the bathroom, toothpaste foam turning her lips into a clown's exaggerated smile. "I don't like this mouth stuff," she informed Suzie.

"You have foam all over your face," Suzie told her. She got up to go brush her own teeth, passing Megan, whose arms were full of towels.

"For if you want to take a shower," Megan called over her shoulder, disappearing into the bedroom. "Do you want some pajamas?" she asked Bart.

"Are those the night clothes?" Bart asked. "I love night clothes!"

Megan laughed and went to get Bart some pajamas. Suzie stood in the bathroom, brushing her teeth. She ran one hand through her hair. It was already starting to get a little greasy, so she hopped in the shower. She thought back to the last time she'd had a shower. It had only been three days ago, the morning before she left with Bart. The two days she'd spent with Bart felt like a week, somehow, and it was a relief to soap up with Megan's rose-scented shower gel.

When Suzie thought about it logically, she and Bart had only been apart for a night and a few hours, but they had been some very lonely hours. Suzie supposed it was the fact that Bart didn't have a phone. If she hadn't been in the right place at the right time, she might never have seen Bart again.

What was it about Bart that formed this odd, nearly instant connection between them? Suzie wondered. The last time she'd had real friends was...well, elementary school. She wasn't sure if she and Bart were _real friends_ yet, but they're certainly not the kind of friends she had in high school. The "friends" she had in high school air-kissed each other's cheeks, shrieked when they saw each other, backstabbed each other viciously if they made even the smallest misstep.

After she'd showered and dressed in fresh pajamas, she went back into the bedroom, where Bart was poring over one of the romance novels Suzie had discarded.

Suzie laughed. "Do you like romance novels?"

Bart flipped through the book. "I've never read a real book. Only kids' books."

"Maybe you should, then!" Suzie looked through the stack of books at Bart's feet. "Try this one."

"Okay." Bart picked up the book and began to read.

Suzie climbed into bed beside her. She had the skill of being able to fall asleep anywhere, with lights and/or music on, so she just closed her eyes and curled up under the blanket. It was nice to have someone in the bed with her. It wasn't even that she enjoyed it, necessarily, but she had spent twenty years with Bob snoring in the bed next to her. It felt right. So Suzie moved her feet back-and-forth, back-and-forth, against the soft sheets, listening to Bart sounding out unfamiliar words. It wasn't long before Suzie was asleep.


End file.
